Roald Dahl’s Miss Honey Social Justice Award

Sponsored by Penguin Random House

Up to $1,000 in reimbursement towards travel and housing to attend the AASL awards presentation at the ALA Annual Conference

$5,000 book donation by Penguin Random House

Deadline: February 1, 2018

Overview

Roald Dahl’s Miss Honey Social Justice Award recognizes and encourages collaboration and partnerships between school librarians and teachers in teaching social justice through joint planning of a program, unit or event in support of social justice using school library resources. The award is to acknowledge teaching by school librarians and the use of school library resources to convey a child’s sense of justice as exemplified by many of the characters in the works of Roald Dahl. The Roald Dahl’s Miss Honey Social Justice Award recognizes AASL members who have collaboratively designed a lesson, event, or course of study on social justice. The award is named for Miss Honey, a character in Dahl’s “Matilda,” honoring the way many of Roald Dahl’s books convey a child’s sense of social justice. In “Matilda,” Miss Honey is a nurturing educator who supports the title character, a gifted young girl in an unkind home.

Criteria

The applicants will be a school librarian who has worked with a teacher(s) to execute a project, event, or program to further social justice using resources of the school library.

The following criteria will be used in the selection process:

The school librarian must be a personal member of AASL.

The librarian has made a significant effort to teach the concept of social justice in creative, inspiring ways. This might include, but not be limited to, teaching about civil liberties, human rights, international justice, genocide studies, and local issues of justice. For example, applicants may design a special lesson, course of study, create a school or district project, or lead their students in some way to address social justice.

Close attention will be focused on applicants who follow the “spirit” of social justice in their classroom; namely, those who possess the ability to expose injustice while at the same time inspiring their students to repair the world through justice, service, or advocacy.

The project will be judged on:

The degree of joint effort, over a significant period of time, between the school librarian and classroom teacher(s);

The use of appropriate school library resources to convey a child’s sense of justice as exemplified by many of the characters in the works of Roald Dahl.